The Night Realm

by Annette Marie

  He shook his head. Who would ever help him anyway? He was a Chrysalis spell weaver. The only way anyone would consider helping him would be if he paid them in magic, and that would have Hades and Chrysalis on his ass in no time.

  No, it was impossible. He couldn’t escape. He would be dead within a few days.

  But would he fare any better if he stayed?

  Shoving off the floor, he stalked into his bedroom and grabbed a shirt and shoes. He threw his usual chain of defensive spells around his neck, paused, then pulled two more chains out of a drawer and dropped them over his head. He also added lodestone bracelets around his wrists; the innocuous leather bands looked like masculine accessories, but each one was inlaid with hidden stones charged with magic to supplement his natural reserves. Just in case.

  Vibrating with tension, he left his house and abandoned the small Rysalis complex. His family members—his father, brothers, cousins, a few uncles—inhabited the small homes. No women though. Succubi, the female version of incubi, had never and would never set foot in Asphodel regardless of whatever talents or skills they possessed.

  He roamed the streets for an hour, moving fast, unable to slow his steps. Thoughts circled in his head like hunting wolves, nipping and tearing at his doubts, dragging his fears into the open, and relentlessly harrying them until he could think of nothing else.

  Eventually, he found himself back at the top of the empty watchtower beside the canal. Instead of watching Clio’s inn—those thoughts he could avoid—he faced the opposite direction. Taking a page from Ash’s book, he climbed onto the curved rooftop and reclined against the shingles, staring with half-lidded eyes at the glowing lights of the main boulevard and the sprawling estate at the end of the street—the Hades residence.

  His father was in there, schmoozing with Samael and his sycophants, maybe even getting the Hades warlord’s opinion on what to do with his rebel son. What if Lyceus handed Lyre over to Samael as punishment? He shuddered at the thought.

  As he watched the flickering lights, a different, equally unwelcome thought crept in. Along with his father, Clio was also attending that event, wasn’t she?

  He ruthlessly crushed that line of contemplation before it could get going. Thinking about her would just piss him off all over again. He’d run around after her like a damn puppy, and after all the trouble he’d gone through, she’d shown her gratitude by exposing his most dangerous spells the moment he’d left her alone. He was done.

  He turned his face to the stars instead. They shimmered across the velvety sky in great swathes of sparkling light, and the eclipsing planet was visible only as a dark circle devoid of stars. Time slipped out of his awareness as he gazed upward, his mind miles away from this place.

  Prickling ice crept up Lyre’s spine and the chill spread through his body. He froze in place, eyes wide. Sucking dread spawned in his chest and swallowed his pounding heart in a pit of frigid darkness. Why the hell was he suddenly too terrified to move?

  A whooshing sound broke the silence, followed by boots thudding on the tiled roof. And still inexplicable panic petrified him too much to react.

  Steps crunched across the other side of the roof, drawing closer, then a dark shape appeared above Lyre. Eyebrows rose above cool gray eyes, and Lyre let out an explosive breath, breaking through the clammy fear.

  “Holy shit, Ash!” He jerked upright. “Where in the nine circles did you come from?”

  Ash crouched beside Lyre, balancing easily on the balls of his feet despite the slippery tiles and the roof’s steep slope. “What are you doing up here?”

  “Contemplating the meaning of life.” Clearly, he wasn’t getting an explanation on where the draconian had appeared from. He didn’t even bother asking about the unnatural dousing of terror.

  A shout rang out from the streets below, and Ash muttered a curse.

  “He went this way!” someone yelled. “I saw him over here!”

  Ash shifted closer, putting himself shoulder to shoulder with Lyre as bobbing lights appeared from an alleyway a few streets over. The silhouettes of a dozen men jogged past, their movements suggesting a search party—and the shapes of their weapons suggesting guards or soldiers.

  Lyre glanced at Ash crouched almost on top of him, positioned so his silhouette wouldn’t be visible on the skyline if anyone on the ground looked up. “Having a bad night?”

  The draconian shrugged. As the search party spread throughout the surrounding streets, Lyre stuck a hand down his shirt and fished out a chain. Selecting a gemstone, he activated it with a touch of magic. The shadows around him and Ash darkened as though they were submerged in a thick smokescreen.

  “I don’t need help,” Ash said flatly.

  Lyre dropped the stone, letting the chain rest against his shirt. “This is so I don’t get caught up in whatever mess you have going on.”

  Ash grunted and shifted to sit more comfortably. The two of them watched the soldiers for a few minutes, waiting in silence until the men had moved farther away.

  “So,” Lyre drawled, “what did you do this time?”

  Ash lifted a hand as though examining it. The starlight illuminated dark splatters running up his arm. “Killed some daemons.”

  Lyre shivered at the casual response coupled with so much blood. “Just the usual sort of mayhem then?”

  Ash absently rubbed his arm on his leg to clean it off. “I killed some daemons at Samael’s gathering.”

  Lyre drew his knee up and propped his elbow on it. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “They were guards of another warlord, so no, not good.” Despite his words, Ash didn’t sound worried.

  “You butchered another warlord’s escort?” Lyre repeated incredulously.

  “I also maimed the warlord.” He frowned. “Or maybe I killed him too. It got kind of messy at the end.”

  “You …” Lyre cleared his throat. “This isn’t … concerning for you? Won’t there be consequences?”

  “Obviously.” Ash gestured in the direction of the searching soldiers. “But Samael won’t kill me. He’ll just send me back to the bastille again.”

  “You’re awfully casual about impending torture.”

  Another shrug. Nothing new, the gesture said. Been there, done that. How much pain and suffering did a person have to endure before they could shrug off weeks of torture?

  “Bloody hell,” Lyre said on a rough exhale. “Why did you do it then? Kill those daemons?”

  Gray eyes turned to Lyre, cutting right through all the bravado, sarcasm, and nonchalance he used to hide the fear and misery he lived with every day.

  “Because I wanted to.”

  And because he didn’t care. Ash literally did not care if they tortured him. Because if they didn’t throw him in the bastille for killing emissaries, they’d toss him in there for some other reason, so he might as well have his fun, or revenge, or whatever he got out of slaughtering those daemons.

  Ash wasn’t a mercenary. No one would willingly work for a warlord who locked him in a dungeon so often he’d grown desensitized to pain. And Lyre knew, with absolute certainty, that Ash was as trapped as he was. They were both slaves who were too useful to kill, troublesome but kept alive by their masters. Lyre bound to Chrysalis, Ash bound to Hades.

  Lyre rubbed his forehead, shaking on the inside and trying not to show it. “Ash, if you could escape this place and never return, would you?”

  “In a heartbeat.”

  No hesitation. No doubt.

  “Even if it was risky? Even if you weren’t sure you could make it work?”

  Ash nodded.

  Lyre’s brow furrowed. “Why don’t you, then?”

  The draconian stared back at him. If Ash was willing to risk it all on freedom, whatever held him here had to be compelling in the worst, most soul-destroying way.

  “It’s not that simple, is it?” Lyre murmured. “It never is.”

  Ash tilted his head back to take in the starry expanse, perhaps pondering
the invisible chains that bound him to this place.

  “What happened at the fancy to-do after you initiated a slaughter?” Lyre asked after a minute of quiet. “How did Samael take it?”

  “He wasn’t there. Got dragged into negotiations over a border dispute up north. The rest of the guests dispersed, as far as I saw.” Ash’s mouth curved in a savage smirk. “No one wanted to carry on with socializing after I repainted the walls.”

  “Did you see—” He bit off the question.

  Ash glanced at him. “Your father? Or the envoy?”

  Lyre sighed. “The envoy.” He didn’t give two shits about his father.

  “It was amusing to watch all the bastards puzzling over why she was there. What Samael intended, I imagine.”

  At least that was the extent of it, and nothing more ominous. Realizing the direction of his thoughts, he cringed. Was he still worried about that girl? If she required protection, her bodyguards could earn their pay for once. He needed to forget about her. He’d already lost enough sleep over it.

  “How did she handle the bloodletting?” Damn it. Why had he asked that?

  “Bolted immediately.”

  Not surprising. Fiddling with his lodestone bracelet, he squinted at the road below. “You said the party broke up. How long ago was that?”

  “Almost an hour.”

  “That’s weird. Clio and the crimson duo should have passed by here on their way back to the inn.”

  Ash’s lips quirked in a frown as he also glanced at the boulevard in plain view of their high perch. “You didn’t see them? Are you sure?”

  “Definitely sure. It was dead quiet until you showed up, and I was here for at least an hour before that.” Sitting here for over an hour, moping. How pathetic.

  Ash sat forward, scanning the streets. “Maybe she was delayed.”

  “Yeah,” Lyre muttered, quashing his unwelcome apprehension. “As long as she has her guards, she’ll be fine.”

  “Last I saw, she was alone.”

  “What?” Lyre yelped, twisting to face Ash.

  The draconian lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Like I said, she ran out of the hall. Her bodyguards weren’t with her.”

  “Shit. I’m sure they found her. They wouldn’t let—”

  He didn’t get to finish the sentence as voices carried through the quiet night. A low male voice, followed by a shriller female one. Lyre leaned forward to peer into the street, and Ash mirrored him.

  “… never should have wandered off by yourself like that, you idiot,” the woman was snarling. “If you’d been there too—”

  “Don’t blame this on me!” the male barked. “You were right beside her. How did you manage to—”

  A man and woman sailed around a corner, running with the deliberate pace of trained athletes who knew how to conserve their strength. Torchlight from a streetlamp caught on their clothing, and the red leather gleamed like fresh blood.

  “You should have been there!” the woman yelled, losing her composure. “It’s your job to protect her!”

  “That’s your job!” the man snarled. “My job is to protect Bastian’s interests.”

  “I knew it!” She skidded to a stop and grabbed his arm. “What did he order you to do? Because keeping Clio safe obviously wasn’t part of it!”

  “Do you really want to do this now? While Clio is missing?”

  The woman shoved the man away from her. “Let’s keep going. Maybe she made it back to the inn on her own.”

  The two bodyguards ran on and vanished around another corner.

  “Fuck,” Lyre snarled under his breath. He’d been saying that more than usual lately. “She’s missing. I should have bloody well known. That girl is a walking disaster. How she even crosses the street without causing mass havoc, I’ll never know.”

  Clio was alone, in Asphodel, in the dark, and no one had a clue where she’d gone. She had no idea how vulnerable she was. Madrigal and Dulcet would both love to catch her alone. Any incubus would take one look at that soft, feminine body and go for it. And when it came to dangerous creatures that stalked the darkness, incubi weren’t even close to the worst of what was on the hunt in Asphodel.

  He rumbled a few more choice epithets, then pushed to his feet. “Stupid girl. Idiot girl. Now I have to find her.”

  “You do?” Ash asked, not moving.

  “Unless you’re going to do it,” he snapped. “Aren’t you tracking her to make sure she’s not an Overworld assassin?”

  “I was, for the most part. But I’m about to be arrested, remember?”

  “You could evade those guards for cycles without even leaving Asphodel.”

  “I could, but I’ll have to let them catch me eventually.” Those razor-sharp eyes narrowed. “Why do you need to find her?”

  Lyre wanted to ask why Ash had to allow the soldiers to capture him, but he had more pressing matters to worry about. Like why did he need to find Clio? Hadn’t he decided he wanted nothing more to do with her?

  He pressed a hand to his face, jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached. Hissing furiously, he jerked his hand away and met the draconian’s intense stare.

  “Everything here is foul.” He swung his arm out, encompassing all the lights in one gesture. “This town. The daemons in it. Us. We’re black with the filth of this place. But she isn’t. And I can’t let them ruin her. I don’t want to see her end up like us.”

  Ash considered him, then rose to his feet, balancing on the tiles with far less effort than Lyre. “Giving a damn about anyone but yourself is dangerous.”

  “I know that.”

  “It could get you killed.”

  Lyre smirked. “Give me a little credit, draconian. I might not be able to break bones with my bare hands like you, but I’m not helpless.”

  “But you need my help.”

  Lyre swallowed his instinctive protest. “Yes.”

  The draconian measured him from head to foot in a single glance, and Lyre had no idea what conclusion the daemon came to. “I’ll find her. That’s it.”

  Relief swept through him. “That’s all I need.”

  “Then let’s see just how ‘not helpless’ you are, weaver.” With no more warning than that, Ash grabbed Lyre around the middle and sprang off the rooftop.

  They dropped two stories and landed on the crossbeam of another roof. Lyre bent his knees but the impact still jarred all the way up his back. At least his legs didn’t shatter like kindling; a human’s bones probably would have.

  “Keep up,” Ash commanded, then launched forward.

  Not wasting his breath on swearing, Lyre followed as Ash sped across the building, then jumped again. He landed neatly on another roof and kept going. Gritting his teeth, Lyre let his fear go and allowed instinct to take over. He leaped, landed, and ran after the draconian. He wasn’t getting left behind, not tonight.

  They raced across rooftops, working their way toward the Hades residence. They returned to ground level and Ash led him into the dark alleyways at the heart of Asphodel. Getting over the wall around the grounds was as simple as using a cloaking spell and accepting a hand up from the draconian. Ash had gotten over the wall with a running head start, a powerful leap, and a quick scramble up the rough stone, as casual as though he ran up walls every damn day. Maybe he did.

  They slipped past the guards, in through a side door, then coasted down long halls that Ash knew as well as the back alleys. On the second level, he took a servant’s passageway into a grand hall, the room still arrayed with long tables. Crumbs and debris littered the dark red tablecloths.

  A handful of servants at the other end of the hall took one look at Ash, quietly set down their things, and left through the nearest exit. Ash ignored them, crossing to the long table at the opposite end.

  Lyre’s steps hesitated. Ash hadn’t been kidding when he said he’d painted the walls. Wild crimson stains marred the paneling, and a gory puddle had spread across the polished floor. At least someone had already taken the bod
ies away.

  Ash walked right past the bloodshed and opened another side door. “This is where I last saw her.”

  He paused in the corridor beyond, and his nostrils flared as he searched for her scent. Lyre’s sense of smell was better than a human’s, but not that good. And as a sizzle of magic danced in the air, Lyre knew the draconian was using magical methods of tracking to supplement his natural senses.

  Lyre hastened to follow as Ash tracked Clio down the corridor and into another. Her winding path betrayed her confusion; she’d been hopelessly lost, meandering deeper into the building with each wrong turn.

  In a hallway lined with windows, Ash paused. He walked forward a few steps, then backtracked to a window. His nostrils flared, and he crouched, fingers brushing the floor.

  “Someone else joined her here, and both scents continue down the hall.”

  Lyre looked down the length of the corridor. “Who’s the second person?”

  Rising to his feet, Ash rolled one shoulder. “Smells like an incubus.”

  Lyre’s apprehension deepened into real fear. “Can you track them?”

  Ash’s answer was to launch back into motion. Now that Clio wasn’t wandering alone, the path out of the building was swift and direct. As Ash sped away from the Hades grounds and through the streets, Lyre knew where they would end up.

  He wasn’t surprised when Ash followed the trail into the Rysalis complex. And he wasn’t surprised when they passed the rows of houses, or when the draconian stopped in a patch of deep shadows near the enclosing wall that separated the complex from the rest of Asphodel. Across the narrow avenue, tucked against the wall and almost hidden by trees, was a short, windowless bunker with a heavy metal door.

  “Dulcet,” Lyre growled. Menace slid through his veins like icy poison. Taking Clio to his personal “lab.” That crazy bastard knew nothing of caution or discretion.

  “The sadistic Rysalis brother?” Ash murmured.

  “That exact one. I see his reputation has spread outside the family.”

  “Can you—” Ash broke off, his head tilting. “We were seen.”

  A moment later, Lyre heard voices drawing nearer. “Who are they?”